The Memory Book Read Online Free PDF Page B

enough to make it happen, though.
    ‘That’s not really a book,’ Mum says, sitting down at the kitchen table, and opening the notebook at a random empty page. The book is full of thick, undulating pages of milky paper, the kind that is slightly textured with tiny ridges that almost chime against the tip of a pen: the kind of paper that Mum most likes to write on. Greg and I know that. The paper is stiff against her fingers; it resists just slightly as she turns the pages. We watch as she leans her cheek into it, laying her face down on the pillow of pages, and it’s such a Mum thing to do, something she would always have done, I think, that I feel comforted. Funny how the odd things, the mad things, are also the reassuring things.
    ‘That whole book business was more of a download,’ she says, lifting her head from the pages and smoothing her hand over the paper. ‘I guess I had to get it out of my system. Maybe the Alzheimer’s is the reason why. Maybe I was already going through the process of emptying my head. Empty head, empty attic. It fits.’
    She smiles up at Greg, the same polite parents’ evening smile. ‘It’s a lovely book. Perfect. Thank you.’
    Greg touches her on the shoulder and she does not move away. It’s painful to see how relieved he is.
    ‘That’s mine book,’ Esther says, appearing at the table, probably looking for her long-promised biscuit. Her nosefits just over its edge. ‘It’s mine book for drawings, isn’t it, Mummy?’
    I wonder if Esther has any sense of how important she has become to us all, how we rely on her to make us laugh. I look at her and wonder how it happens, how a person so complete and unique emerges from another one. A person who is so small but so essential to all of us: she is our collective smile.
    ‘Please may it be mines, Mummy?’ Esther asks her sweetly. ‘Yes?’
    We have all learned that since Esther turned three, it’s generally best not to openly disagree with her, else the famous Armstrong temper will makes its presence felt and she’ll throw something, or hit someone, or lie down on the floor and wail like the true drama queen she is. None of us minds very much – well, not Mum or I, anyway. We both have the Armstrong temper too, and when we see it in Esther, we know she is truly one of us. Instead, Mum manages her, agrees with her or changes the subject, and makes it so that although the little madam doesn’t get her way all the time, she doesn’t know that she doesn’t. Mum has been brilliant at managing Esther: mothering her, I suppose the right word is. I watch her all the time now. I try to note it all down. The things she does, her smile, her jokes, her phrases. All the things she used to do for me when I was three years old, I suppose, but back then I didn’t notice either. Now I need to notice – I need to know everything she does – so that when the time comes, I can look after Esther in exactly the same way Mum would have. That isthe thing I can do, which makes everything else, the stupid, stupid mess I’ve made of my life, all the worse. Other people get to make mistakes at my age, but not me. I can’t, I don’t have time. I have to be here for Esther; I have to give her the same life that Mum would have given her.
    ‘Oh yes, you can draw in it,’ Mum says, picking up a pen and handing it to Esther straight away. I see Greg wince, but Mum reaches out and takes his hand. Her touch instantly melts away all the tension in his body. ‘This isn’t just a book for
me
to write in, is it?’ she says, smiling up at him, the teacher smile replaced – for now, at least – by one that means everything. It reminds me of my favourite wedding photo of the two of them: she’s gazing up at him, and he’s standing behind her laughing like a loon, looking so happy. ‘This is a book for you all to write in too. It’s for my memories, but yours as well. It’s a book for all of us. And Esther can start it off.’
    Greg pulls out a